The 2020 Tour de France winner won the first summit finish of the race ahead of Britain's Simon Yates of Team BikeExchange by six seconds.

Colombia's Sergio Higuita of EF Education-Nippo crossed the line third, 29 seconds down on the Slovenian, with Spain's Mikel Landa of Bahrain Victorious and Colombia's Nairo Quintana of Team Arkea-Samsic completing the top five.

Overnight race leader Belgium's Wout van Aert of Jumbo-Visma fought hard to keep the lead, but conceded 45 seconds to the winner and now sits 35 seconds behind Pogačar in the general classification.

Higuita's efforts today tie him on time with Van Aert in the general classification and see him sit in third, three seconds ahead of Landa, who is a further three ahead of Quintana.

"Today was a very hard stage," said Pogačar according to CyclingNews.

"My team did a great job bringing down the gap from the breakaway and then I did my best on the climb - I am very satisfied with this win.

"Now I am in the lead, but tomorrow we have another really hard stage, and with the final time trial anything can still happen."

Previous challengers Dutch rider Mathieu van der Poel of Alpecin-Fenix and France's Julian Alaphilippe of Deceuninck-Quickstep fell down the standings after struggling on the climb.

Van der Poel was more than 20 minutes behind Pogačar, ending any chance of making the top 10 in the race, while Alaphilippe struggled with 5.5 kilometres to go and finished 1min 44sec down on the lead.

The fifth stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico is scheduled to take place over a hilly 205km route from Castellalto to Castelfidardo.